


An All-Round Trip to the Hall of Judgment (or: the Maybe Necrophiliac Who Loved Me)

by misura



Category: Gods Of Egypt (2016)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "For the record, I was not going to cuddle with yourcorpse," Horus said. "I'm not some sort of madman.""Could've fooled me," Bek said, which he felt was fair.(Bek dies, Horus refuses to let go)
Relationships: Bek/Horus (Gods of Egypt 2016)
Kudos: 73
Collections: Small Fandoms Fest





	An All-Round Trip to the Hall of Judgment (or: the Maybe Necrophiliac Who Loved Me)

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _Horus & or / Bek, "Preserve my advisor's earthly remains so that I may keep him with me for the rest of my days and into eternity." Or Bek as the first mummy_ (destrier18)

Bek died in his sleep. As far as deaths went, he figured it had been a pretty good way to go; it hadn't hurt or anything; he'd simply dozed off, same as any night, and next thing he knew, Anubis had come and gotten him, and now here he was.

He'd even gotten his old young body back, which was probably a good thing. From what he'd heard from Zaya, the afterlife involved a whole lot of walking and standing in line, so.

_Zaya._ Funny: he hadn't thought about her in years, and now all of a sudden, all these memories came flooding back: Zaya, as he'd first seen her; Zaya, laughing at him; Zaya, half-angry and half-impressed as he'd shown off his daily loot. Zaya, telling him goodbye as she and Hathor left for who knew where.

All Bek had known - all Bek still knew, was that there'd been demons involved, to which Bek's reaction had been a very sensible 'no, thank you'. Horus had teased him about it for weeks after.

Bek was going to miss that. The teasing. The talking. The friendship.

Not so much the snoring, the terrible taste in poetry and the super judgmental judgmentalness about a tiny bit of thievery every now and then, just to keep his hand in. (All right, so he was going to miss those, too. A little bit.)

Nine days of walking, walking and oh yeah, also a lot of walking later, Bek reached the Hall of Judgment. It was pretty imposing, if not maybe worth a nine-day walk.

Fun detail: being dead meant Bek didn't need sleep anymore, but he sure still got tired. Of walking, because there wasn't anything else to do.

Bek wished he'd known about this sooner. He could have said something to Horus, like, hey, maybe put in some camels or carriages or something, or get Anubis to drop off people a bit closer to where they were supposed to be going. Was that really so much to ask?

Too late now. He stepped forward when it was his turn, all nice and obedient, and ready to face judgment, and then of course it all went wrong:

Horus showed up out of nowhere, walking up to the scales and saying, "No," in that tone of his that indicated he meant business, which was to say that if he didn't get what he wanted, he'd pout for days and make himself an absolute nuisance.

The judges tried to pretend they hadn't seen him. Bek could've told them that wasn't going to work: he'd be happy to play along, stepping forward when commanded, but then he bumped into Horus, who looked at him like - _oh_.

Well, they'd been close. Friends. King and advisor. Lovers, in some of Bek's more daring fantasies.

And it felt nice to be appreciated, really it did: Horus had come a long way from that jerk who'd gone from pitying himself to slapping Bek around like his life was worth less than that of a dung beetle, but, well, Bek had always known it was going to end one day.

"Horus." Great, now Anubis was here, too. "You no longer have a claim on this mortal. You must let him go."

Bek winced. There were ways to handle Horus, sure. Telling him what he could and couldn't do wasn't one of them, though.

"I disagree," Horus said. "I do have a claim. He's mine."

Bek became aware that Horus was touching him. Not, like, in an intimate sort of way. More like in a 'hey, I'm dead, and you're not, so how does that even work?' sort of way.

"In the world of the living, you are a king," Anubis said. "However, we are not in the world of the living. You don't belong here."

"Give me what I want, and I'll leave. At once," Horus said.

"Um," Bek said. "Do you think maybe I could get a say in this?"

"No," Horus replied, at the same time Anubis declared, "Mortals have no business meddling in what they do not understand."

"I'm taking him back with me, and that is final," Horus said. "I'll fight you, if I have to. I wonder what would happen if I were to kill you here. What do you think?"

"This is really embarrassing, you know. I feel like I can't take you anywhere," Bek said.

"Shut up," Horus said. "Well, Anubis? What's it to be?"

Anubis looked sour, though for all Bek knew, that was just how jackals looked all the time. "I have no wish to fight you."

"Excellent." Horus turned to Bek. "Coming?"

"Do I have an actual choice?" Bek asked.

"All right, that's just gross."

Bek had never spent much time thinking about what happened to people's bodies after they died, other than some vague notion that they turned to dust after a while or something. It had sounded sort of neat. Hygienic. Clean.

"What - oh," Horus said. "That."

"I'm not moving back in that!" Bek said. If Horus wanted to drag him back from the dead, fine, but Bek drew the line at being put back into a body that looked like half the doctors and doctor's students in the country had been at it, practicing the Gods only knew what types of procedures. "I'd rather be dead!"

"Well, _technically_ \- " Horus started, then seemed to change his mind. "It was just in case," he said. "Don't worry about it."

"In case of what?" Bek asked. He knew he should stop looking: Horus had told him not to worry about it, and after a rocky start, Horus _had_ gotten rather better about Bek being able to trust him.

He tried think of it like an old home. No point in getting upset when the hovel you used to live in got demolished to make place for affordable housing.

"In case I failed," Horus said. "I wanted - well, I suppose I wanted to feel like some part of you was still there. With me."

"It doesn't even look like me!" Bek said.

"They're not done yet," Horus said. He sounded defensive. "Look - I didn't bring you back so we could argue. I brought you back because I - because we're friends."

Bek supposed he should feel touched or something. "All right, fine," he said. "So how does this work?"

The answer turned out to be: poorly. Bek didn't know why he was surprised.

Nobody except Horus (and supposedly the other gods) was able to see him, or touch him, or hear him. Bek did seem able to move stuff, but then, if he focused, he was also able to just sort of pass through doors and walls like they weren't even there.

"Well, I mean, think about it," Horus said. "If it became known that this was possible, who would want to pass into the Afterlife? We - the gods would be flooded with prayers. It would be chaos."

"So why'd you bring _me_ back?" Bek asked. "You knew I was mortal when you met me."

Horus looked away. "I told you. We're friends."

"Yeah, but - "

"Weren't you willing to go to any length to bring back that girl - what was her name again?" Horus said. "How is this any different? Honestly, I think you're being weird. And, if I may say so, rather ungrateful."

"Her name was Zaya," Bek said. He suspected Horus had known her name perfectly well.

"Fine. Zaya," Horus said. "You brought back Zaya, and I brought back you. You're welcome."

Bek knew that wasn't true: _Ra_ had brought back Zaya, because Horus hadn't been able to. Ra'd brought back Bek, too, but Bek supposed they weren't going to be talking about that.

Bek hadn't minded at the time: he'd been young, his life barely even begun. He'd wanted to live.

Ten days ago, he hadn't wanted to die, exactly, but he'd been ready. He'd lived a full life. He took pride in what he had accomplished. He'd had a few regrets, sure, who didn't - but those, too, he'd made peace with. You couldn't win them all.

"Do you know how many people would sell their souls to get what I gave you?" Horus asked.

Bek bit back his first reply. Horus had a point. Not quite the point he thought he had (so what else was new?) but the fact was, Bek was back. Alive, more or less. Unless he wanted to try to find a way of killing himself, he was stuck the way he was now.

Instead of complaining about it, he should probably try to make the best of it.

The physical remains formerly known as Bek's body were processed further, until the end product got deposited in Bek's old chair.

"It's a memento of your presence," Horus said.

Horus still didn't seem to see anything wrong with putting a dead and thoroughly violated body on public display as if it were an honor. Someone'd done a stylized painting of Bek's face.

The lack of any resemblance whatsoever was uncanny.

"So what, if you hadn't gotten my soul back, you would've taken it for walks and sit opposite it at dinner and played checkers with it or something?" Bek asked. He'd more or less slipped back into his old job, except that since regular people weren't able to see or hear him, his ability to interact with his former staff was extremely limited.

Horus had appointed some lesser god as a go-between, which Bek felt was just weird and uncomfortable for everyone involved, but he couldn't think of any better solution so.

"What business of yours would it have been if I did?" Horus asked. "You'd have been dead. You wouldn't have cared."

Bek felt there was something to that. Not the truth: Horus was definitely being strange and creepy and god-like here, but Bek felt that if he could just get past all that, he'd see something he'd missed. Something important. Something that would make all of this make sense - inasfar as gods ever did.

"You don't know that," he said. Horus had told Bek himself: even the gods didn't know what came after judgment. Not really.

"You wouldn't have been _here_ ," Horus said. "With me."

"Oh, my - " Bek swallowed the last word, because it would only make Horus smugger. "Is this a love confession? It is, isn't it? That's why you - because you literally can't imagine life without me. That's seriously messed up, man. And, okay, also kind of sweet. I guess. Maybe. In a seriously messed up way."

Horus grimaced. "Thanks. I can't imagine why I didn't say anything sooner, given how well you seem to be taking this."

"Yeah, but - " Bek said, before some other thought occurred to him. "Were you going to cuddle with my corpse? Put it in your bed?"

"I think this conversation is now over," Horus said. "Go - do something. Come back when we can talk about this like sensible, rational human beings, or as close as you ever come."

"Oh, look who's talking!" Bek said. "You - I was by your side for _forty years_! You never said a thing! Excuse me for not catching on! We can't all be the all-seeing Master of the Air!"

"For the record, I was not going to cuddle with your _corpse_ ," Horus said. "I'm not some sort of madman."

"Could've fooled me," Bek said, which he felt was fair.

Especially when Horus added, "It would have been your dried and perfectly preserved body."

"Oh, right, that makes me feel so much better. Thanks for clearing that up for me."

"Bek," Horus said, looking at him like - all right, that was just playing dirty.

Bek would have played dirty right back, except that unlike some people, he hadn't actually walked around for _forty years_ hiding his feelings.

He'd maybe done it for ten, twenty years.

"I - " Horus said, and then they were kissing, and Bek was so surprised that he almost went right through the wall, which would've been a bit awkward, but happily, he remembered just in time that it was there and that he _wanted_ it to be there, and fuck, Horus was a good kisser.

Bek figured that maybe, just maybe, he'd have to let that whole bringing him back from the dead thing go after all.

("This doesn't mean I'm okay with you keeping my dead body around. Can't you put it in a pyramid or something somewhere?")

("Hm. I suppose maybe I could be convinced.")


End file.
